Poor Ginta just can't get a break. He's nearsighted, does poorly in school, isn't athletic, and to top it all off, is really short for his age. He has quite the imagination, however, having had the same dream of the fantastical world of Märhaven, where he's the hero that saves the day, a total of 102 times. This only makes him a bigger laughingstock at school, except for his childhood friend Koyuki who very much enjoys Ginta's imaginary adventures. Then one day, a mysterious portal appears in the middle of his class room and its guardian summons Ginta to the world beyond. With little hesitation, Ginta steps through to find himself in the land of his dreams. Not only is Märhaven real, but Ginta is now strong and agile and best of all, no longer needs his glasses to see! Thus begins Ginta's adventures in Märhaven.
Early on in the plot, the action revolves around fighting monsters and bandits and introducing the other main characters. The plot then takes a darker turn when the Chess declare war on all of Märhaven which culminates in an epic tournament with the fate of Märhaven hanging in the balance.
The anime's North American release ran on Cartoon Network's Toonami (after a more consistent run on Toonami Jetstream), however schedule irregularities ensured its tenure was short lived. Due to that, the English dub was discontinued as well.
See also the series Sequel Series, MÄR Omega
Provides examples of:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects:The anime is very guilty of this, spending more budget on CGI Guardians than flowing animation.
- Accidental Pervert: Jack during his first match with Pano.
- He drops the accidental part when Snow starts taking off her clothes on account of the heat from the volcano field. She didn't mind Ginta cheering her body, but she got quite irritated when Jack was shouting for her to go topless.
- Action Girl: Both Snow and Dorothy
- Adaptation Expansion: A HUGE example in the anime, especially near the end of the series.
- A Glass of Chianti: Peta drinks Nanashi's blood from a fancy (yet creepy) wineglass during their battle. And yeah, it's just a glass, not an Ärm.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: Babbo was Phantom's Ärm in the first games.
- In the last volume, we learn that isn't strictly the case. Babbo's "evil" personality was actually the result of the evil from the Caldian Orb inhabiting him. It left after the first War Games, leaving Babbo with the personality of Caldia's Elder... And Ginta's father.
- An Ice Person: Snow has ice powers (she also has Making a Splash powers with her strongest Ärm), as does Girom.
- Anime Theme Song: In the Japanese version. The English dub has a badass Instrumental Theme Tune instead.
- Anti-Villain ... Ash loves kids and only fights with the Chess to end war, thus protected the world's children. Holy shit, is he on the wrong side.
- Ascended Fanboy: Ginta gets to visit the fantasy land he dreamed so long for.
- Authority Equals Asskicking: The Chess are ranked via chess pieces. Pawns being mooks, followed by Rooks, Bishops, and Knights being the highest ranked fighters. There is only one King and Queen and they don't fight till the very end.
- Award-Bait Song: Sakuraio
, the fourth ending of the series.- I Just Wanna Hold You Tight, the first ending.
- I Just Wanna Hold You Tight
- Back from the Dead: Phantom is killed in the previous war games, but gets revived and leads the Chess in the next set of war games. Danna at the end of the series.
- Blow You Away: Dorothy and Fûghi both have wind powers.
- Bait-and-Switch Lesbians: Despite being in love with Ginta, Dorothy has quite a few moments in the anime being inappropriately groped by other females.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Though, as a twist, it's Ginta and the Caldian Orb inside Babbo's mind.
- Betty and Veronica: With Snow being the Betty and Dorothy being the Veronica.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Dorothy is Diana's sister, who's Snow's stepmother and also the Queen of the Big Bad
- Bilingual Bonus: Märchen is German for "Fairy Tale".
- Koyuki is Japanese for 'little snow', her alternate within MAR is Snow.
- Blessed with Suck: The Zombie Tattoo, depending on how you look at it. On the one hand, it grants immortality; even if you die, you simply Rise from Your Grave some time later. In addition to that, the tattoo is a gift and Märk of admiration from Phantom, something every Chess Piece would quite literally kill for. On the other hand, it grants immortality by making you into a living zombie; "never to die, and never to truly live again". Mär member Alviss views it as a curse, while Knight Rolan views it as a great blessing.
- Bling of War: Justified in that the flashy outfits with fancy rings, necklaces and accessories are what the characters use to attack. In short, their bling is war.
- Break the Cutie: Chimera. Though most of the Knights had lives this messed up.
- Butt-Monkey: Jack. Lampshaded almost constantly. Especially in one episode of the anime where he is turned into an actual monkey by Loco and Babbo comments that it's not really any different from normal.
- Casting a Shadow: Alviss and Loco both have darkness based powers.
- The Chains of Commanding: Due to the rules of the tournament, if the captain is defeated, the entire team loses. Ginta as team captain, knows all to well what the price of failure means.
- Captain Ersatz: Some of the characters in the show are inspired by fairy tale characters.
- Cat Girl: Chaton, the strongest Bishop. She ends up defeating Alan, who has a fear of cats. Also Merilo, a maid guardian. And Bumoru, a counterpart to Merilo, though significantly less of a 'cat-girl' impression.
- Chess Motifs: The Chess. Ranking system is organized by the strength of chess pieces, the order being Pawn, Rook, Bishop, Knight, Queen, and King.
- Clothing Damage: Happens a lot in the anime. Dorothy and Alviss are the main victims.
- Chaste Hero: While Snow and Jack comment on Alice's appearance, and Bappo is embarrassed to take that form, Ginta doesn't even seem to give her the time of day.
- Combat Sadomasochist: Candice. She outright says this to Jack when she fights him, and her Arms include one that increases her magic power as she takes damage.
- Crapsaccharine World: It's a world of children's fairy tales... populated by Omnicidal Blood Knights who came very, very close to forcing the entire world's citizenry across the Despair Event Horizon six years ago, and some places have a very After the End feel to it..
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Ginta, Jack, and Nanashi. All three display varying degrees of stupidity, yet when pushed hard enough show their badass sides. As well as Rolan, to an extent. He stutters and acts rather silly, even when evading attacks in battle...until he starts fighting back.
- Nanashi acts like and is in fact a skirt chaser all of the time. However the few matches that he loses are because he went easy on his opponents
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Dorothy vs. Avrute.
- Cursed with Awesome: The Zombie Tattoo, depending on how you look at it. On the one hand, it grants immortality; even if you die, you simply Rise from Your Grave some time later. In addition to that, the tattoo is a gift and Märk of admiration from Phantom, something every Chess Piece would quite literally kill for. On the other hand, it grants immortality by making you into a living zombie; "never to die, and never to truly live again". Mär member Alviss views it as a curse, while Knight Rolan views it as a great blessing.
- Dating Catwoman: Jack and Pano.
- Deliberately Cute Child: Loco, also due to her Ärm's side effect makes her much older
- Demonic Possession: The Caldian Orb. Over the course of the series, it possesses Babbo (twice!) and Boss.
- Department of Redundancy Department: "Kung Fu Frog is a master of Kung Fu!"
- Died Happily Ever After: Chimera of all people, after seeing Ian and Gido reunited.
- Disappeared Dad: Ginta's father who turned out to be Boss of the Cross Guard.
- Specifically, he was killed in the first War Games. In the last volume, we learn that the Caldian Orb possessed his body, and that his soul was pushed into Babbo.
- Dishing Out Dirt: Rolan has earth powers. In the first training gate, Jack has magic crystals placed in his shovel by Dorothy that grant him the ability to break up and throw the ground at his opponents, as well as control over plants and fungi.
- Disproportionate Retribution: This was what lead to Chimera's Start of Darkness when her wedding was crashed and her groom killed all because he was a former (and by then reformed) Chess member. If that wasn't enough the mob that killed him turned their hatred on her, scarring her face horribly and even RAPED her.
- Doppelganger Link: Snow is Koyuki's counterpart in the fantasy world of Mar Haven (or in the case of the anime her magically-created clone). They see each other's lives in their dreams.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: The death of all the main characters in the end of the anime. They get better, though.
- Eating the Enemy: "ARM" come in a wide variety and some are able devour their foe. A great double example occurs during the 2nd round of the War Games where Dorothy goes up against Bishop ranked Chess Piece. She sens out a pawn ARM to test what he can do, and he reveals his ARM to be a Blob Monster called Vacua that envelops his enemies and dissolves them instantly. After destroying some of her weak ARM's he sicks Vacua on her. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't realize that she's a ruthless Blood Knight and is WAY out his league. She decides to bust a real ARM and in a flash, the Chess Piece finds his monster ARM sucked into a portal and devoured with chucks spat out. Out of the portal emerges Dorothy's own enemy-eating ARM, Toto a giant, blue dog with a Black-Hole Belly. Suddenly, the poor Mook finds himself on the receiving end of this trope as Dorothy has the beast suck him into the abyss that is its stomach.
- Emotionless Girl: Subverted with Loco, as she is simply a stoic, 32-year-old woman in a little girl's body. Also, she shows genuine surprise (in one case, horror) at some of the crazy shit the good guys pull off.
- Empathic Weapon: Babbo, which is considered an impossible trait for an Ärm to have.
- Epic Flail: Babbo again, the weapon in question looks like a Kendama (like paddle-ball, only with a hammer), Ginta uses him like a flail until Babbo gets upgraded later.
- Even the Guys Want Him: "Man, Alviss-dono is popular among both men and women!", as stated by Edward during episode 88's Mär Heaven Network.
- Expy: Nanashi is whole lot similar to Flame of Recca's Joker.
Epileptic Tree says that Nanashi IS Joker who got thrown into the Mär universe after his final battle. The fact that he has the scent of an otherworlder, and first showed up in Märhaven with Joker's clothing and stomach wound, only adds support to this. - Extra-ore-dinary: The majority of characters, as they tend to have at least one weapon Ärm.
- Eye Patch Of Power: Both Nanashi and Galian wear their bandanas so that it looks like they're blindfolded (although close-ups reveal that one eye is exposed) and Candice wears an actual eye patch (with a flaming skull insignia no less) over her left eye, and they look pretty badass this way.
- Eyes Always Shut: Ian. He opens them slightly when being creepy.
- Fairy Tale Free-for-All: By virtue of all the characters being based on a fairy tale in some way and Fairy Tale Motifs being present everywhere.
- Fairy Tale Motifs: They're Everywhere, most notably Aqua's storyline has paralells to the Non-Disneyfied "The Little Mermaid".
- Fun with Acronyms: The English title "MÄR" stands for "Märchen Awakens Romance", the "Märchen" standing for fairy tales.
- Fractured Fairy Tale: Boy howdy. Almost everyone is a reference to some fairy tale, even guys like Alviss. It'd be easier to list the people who aren't.
- Gecko Ending: In a rather odd example in that the manga ended before the anime. Unlike most examples, it is actually positive as it wraps up the remaining plot threads by having Koyuki and Snow merge in order for Ginta not feel guilty about leaving Mar Heaven, the Orb being revealed that it is the embodiment of all of the evil of Ginta's world, thus connecting to why he had Diana try and open a portal to his world and make the latter's motive make more sense and the fights are much better paced than the actual manga.
- Genre Blind: The Chess were fully capable of completely destroying Mär, and instead they decide to deliberately sit back and watch the good guys become stronger. What a bunch of idiots... Justified in that an easy victory goes against basic Chess philosophy.
- It's even worse for the Zonnen. In order to end the War Games, they intended to assassinate the main characters during the latter's Training from Hell. Instead of simply killing Alan and destroying the training gates he had activated, they GO INSIDE THE TRAINING GATES AND TORTURE THE PEOPLE INSIDE. Cue the KÄrmic Deaths.
- Gingerbread House: In one round of the War Games, Princess Snow fights against the Bishop Emokis, an ugly little girl whose signature ÄRM is the Gingerbread House: a house of sweets. When she eats the House, she bulks up, growing fatter and larger and stronger with each bite.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: Anime only, in typically the final battle.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Many of the protagonists have minor scars, while some of the Chess Pieces are more damaged and even deformed, especially Chimera.
- Gonk: Semi-deconstructed with Kouga, who is extremely sensitive about his ugliness, and hates pretty boys like Alviss.
- Grand Theft Me In the final battle Its revealed the Danna who Ginta faces actually being possessed by the true big bad, a evil orb.
- Green Thumb: Jack and Wizard, one of the Knights, have plant based powers.
- Groin Attack: Episode 26 had Jack winning his rematch against Pano through the use of some hallucinatory toadstools that made Pano see Jack as being some sort of handsome guy. When the effects had wore off, Pano was less than pleased about Jack manipulating her normal senses and she ends up kicking him in the family jewels, much to Jack's dismay and to his own teammates' embarrassment.
- Hate Sink:
- Girom is obnoxious, sadistic Serial Killer that specifically targets women, and acts like a coward every time he's cornered. He also lacks the Evil Is Cool and Love to Hate factor by having no redeeming qualities aside for his love for his equally repulsive sister, Rapunzel.
- Rapunzel, much like her brother, is a loathsome figure. She's a perpetually screaming, narcissist who belittles everyone else for being ugly in spite of being very hideous, obnoxious and incredibly Stupid Evil for her short-sighted Bad Boss antics that resulted in her entire team being killed almost entirely by her own hands, overall coming across as a violent irritation to everyone around her than a truly disturbing psychopath to not tread lightly. Her one redeeming quality of caring for Girom feels shallow as he's just as unsympathetic as her, and even with her Freudian Excuse, it rings hollow as she and Girom are all too happy to be proud, arrogant, remorseless murderers, especially in comparison to Phantom and Chimera's who've suffered far worse in comparison to put it lightly. Dorothy herself even calls her Rapunzel for how hollow her excuse is. Her antics eventually got on Phantom's nerves and has Ian kill her to replace her amongst the Knight Ranks. And aside from Girom, no one in-universe or out-universe felt any remorse or pity for her passing.
- Girom is obnoxious, sadistic Serial Killer that specifically targets women, and acts like a coward every time he's cornered. He also lacks the
- Harmless Freezing: Snow uses an Ärm to trap herself in ice to prevent the attempted kidnapping by the Chess. Subverted because she's actually in mortal danger if she isn't defrosted in time.
- He Is All Grown Up: Koyuki was already in love with Ginta, but she quite enjoyed seeing that, upon his return from MAR Heaven, he was a year older, taller, stronger, and didn't need glasses anymore. The magic may not have transferred, but all the other benefits he received from his trip to MAR Heaven did.
- Inheriting Snow's affections for him probably helps. She doesn't explicitly mention it in the anime like she does in the manga, but it's obviously there.
- Heavy Voice: Emokis's signature ARM is the Gingerbread House: a house of sweets. Eating it makes her grow to sumo-like proportions, gaining superhuman strength and toughness in the process. As she grows bigger, her voice grows deeper and thicker.
- Heel–Face Turn: Plenty of Chess pieces in the anime, Ash, Pano, Gido, Ian, Galian, Chaton, Loco, to name a few
- Heroic BSoD: Ginta, in the anime, after Snow's death
- Heroic Sacrifice: Danna dies in his fight against Phantom.
- Hidden Elf Village: Kaldea, from which all Ärm are produced.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Phantom pretty much, he wanted to see how strong Ginta would become. And wasted a chance to kill him when he was still weak. He even admits it wasn't such a good idea in the final battle when Ginta starts to overcome him.
- Holding Back the Phlebotinum: Utterly averted. Most notably, the Training Gate is introduced early and used often; every character not participating in the current day's fights will be training inside, and everyone goes inside to train on the days off.
- In battle, the big weapons and guardians are used often, but saved for late in the battle, but this is justified because it takes time to build up synchronization with one's Ärm. Using a big guardian too early will result in it being as harmless as a soap bubble, as Alan is all too willing to explain to an unfortunate Rook.
- I Coulda Been a Contender!: Gaira on the surface, has the makings of a badass and was the number 3 player in the previous War Games gets eliminated in the preliminaries by Chimera.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: There's an entire arc in the anime dedicated to Phantom kidnapping and keeping ALVISS at his side, under mind control-complete with Yaoi Fanservice! No, really.
- Imagination-Based Superpower: Babbo. When Ginta slots in a magic stone, he can give that "version" any ability he can think of. This ranges from a hammer/dagger Ärm, to such things as a jelly that defends against all attacks, an Ärm-wielding guardian, and finally a Reverse Gatekeeper Clown.
- Immortality: Phantom and the zombie tattoo.
- Improbable Weapon User: Jack and his Battle Scoop! (even if it's more of a shovel/spade)
- Invincible Hero: All of the team members are this to a degree, but Dorothy takes the cake (She's the only other member of the group not to lose in any of the fights. Ginta himself is justified during the War Games because his loss, as captain, would mean that the entire team would lose.).
- Just to demonstrate this point, the three weakest members of the team, Snow, Jack and Nanashi. Even they only ever seem to lose under bad circumstances. Nobody on the team ever seems to lose a straight-up fair match. With Nanashi, his first loss was because he was too chivalrous, and his draw was because he threw it on purpose, not because he was incapable of winning. With Snow, her first loss was because she had a MAJOR DISADVANTAGE due to the extreme heat making her ice powers far weaker, and could've probably destroyed Mr. Hook if all things were equal. Her second loss is because she had a huge psychological block about attacking her opponent, but she still holds her own quite nicely, just as she's about to get over the block, she gets captured. Only Jack ever seems to lose purely because of just not being strong enough.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: Alan and Ed occupy the same body, and switch places when one of them falls asleep.
- Jumped at the Call: Ginta heads through the portal to Mär with minimal regrets. He occasionally feels homesick and doesn't seem to like he's making Koyuki and his mother worry about him.
- Karmic Death: Rapunzel after taking it upon herself to kill her teammates if they lost (or tied in poor Aqua's case). Say the least after she lost her battle to Dorothy, Phantom has her killed personally (in the manga, she ended up getting decapitated by Ian, which was her favorite killing method).
- Karma Houdini: Girom. Sweet blue monkey hell, GIROM. No matter how many atrocities he commits, the only punishment he ever gets is getting blasted into the sky and punched unconscious and losing his sister Rapunzel to Ian. He never learns his damn lesson.
- Kawaiiko: Aqua. Her cuteness will rot your teeth out.
- Kill It with Fire: How Jack wins his final battle.
- Kill the Cutie: Aqua, a Chess bishop, is killed by Girom after her draw against Nanashi, even though she SUCCEEDS in winning Rock–Paper–Scissors against Rapunzel. Ginta does NOT take it very well.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Both Nanashi and Babbo have had their memories wiped prior to Ginta's arrival.
- Light 'em Up: Ginta, when using Alice, has light powers.
- Little Miss Badass: Loco though she is older than she appears and justified due to the effect of her Darkness Ärms that reverses the users age.
- Love at First Punch: Jack and Pano.
- Love Makes You Evil: Subverted: Phantom only got more bitter when Alma dumped him for being a villain.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: The King is Danna, Ginta's father
- Magikarp Power: Jack's Battle Shovel is easily the most useless Ärm the group has, even worse than an unpowered Babbo. All it is is a shovel shaped chÄrm that morphs into... an ordinary shovel, not even meant for battle. However, during his first Training Gate session, Dorothy teaches him how to use Magic Stones with the shovel to give it better powers. Jack manages to turn the shovel into a highly powered Nature Ärm (renaming it the Earth Shovel) with the power to manipulate soil and rock, and to germinate and control all manner of highly magical plants. He then proceeds to win almost every one of his War Game fights with it.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Roland and Candice, mostly noticeable in the Ghost Chess arc, when they appear together often. Roland is mild mannered, delicate, gentle and looks like a girl. Candice is loudspoken, rude, loves to fight, has an immense ammount of bloodlust and even gropes females now and then.
- Mask Power: Every Chess Piece with a rank higher than Pawn has a unique mask. Pawns all have identical masks, to cement their place as Faceless Goons.
- Inverted in the Fourth Battle, where the only Chess Bishop wearing a mask was defeated instantly.
- Maybe Ever After: In the anime, between Ginta and Koyuki/Snow. It's clearly the implication, and it is difficult to interpret their final scene together as being platonic in nature. It's not conclusive but it's significantly more suggestive than the original manga.
- Meaningful Name: Dorothy, being a Shout-Out to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, whose most powerful Ärm is a giantic dog named Toto, a giant robot, a crucified scarecrow, and a flying lion, as well as a psychotic quilted doll (books only); Snow, being a Shout-Out to Snow White, whose Ärm are all ice based; Jack, being a Shout-Out to Jack and the Beanstalk whose Ärm are mostly based around plants and gardening. See a theme developing here?
- Also, Snow and Koyuki.
- Mighty Glacier: Avrute, one of the Chess bishops in the forth battle of the war game, moves slowly and wields a huge claw that can slice through anything; he gets defeated instantly before he can even do anything.
- Mirror Match: Nature Ärm Shadowman creates a perfect copy of a person at their strongest. The heroes use it as a training partner inside the Training Gate.
- More than Mind Control: Both Phantom and Diana were actually under the manipulation of King, but both were twisted to begin with.
- Morph Weapon: Babbo and Jack's battle scoop, and a few other Ärm, through the use of socketing magic stones and then thinking up of cool powers.
- Multiple Demographic Appeal: Despite the manga having blood and being geared towards a young teenage audience, the anime was made to be aired to kids... and surprisingly enough, fangirls
- Mushroom Samba: In the War Games, Jack gets a rematch with Pano. He seeds her with special mushrooms that give her hallucinations. They go like this: The volcanoes around the battlefield erupt, the mushrooms become caterpillars, the caterpillars become butterflies and the wasteland becomes a field of flowers, the butterflies become bats, vines wrap her up, and then Jack, much better looking than he really is, appears and offers to remove the mushrooms if she gives up, which she does immediately. In fact, he leaves one behind on purpose so she would still think he's handsome. He accidentally knocks it off when he goes to hug her, and the hallucinations wear off in the span of a few seconds.
- Nebulous Evil Organization: The Chess. Lampshaded by Loco, who fully recognizes just how evil the Chess Pieces are. Though, being a Chess Piece herself, she doesn't seem to care.
- Nerd Glasses: Ginta wears these at the beginning of the series. Discarding them right after arriving in Märhaven.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Ginta has super strength because of a gravity difference.
- Not a Game: Ginta gets a very harsh wake-up call as to the seriousness of the Chess Piece threat when Alan explains the War Games after showing Ginta the destruction the Chess have already caused.
- And reaffirmed again with Snow after she watches Dorothy utterly destroy one of the Chess Pieces, even when the poor guy tries to call uncle but Dorothy won't let him.
- Official Couple: Jack and Pano, Ian and Gido and Alan and Chaton.
- In the anime, Ginta and Koyuki/Snow is implied. Bordering on Maybe Ever After
- Orgasmic Combat: Candice's sadomasochistic streak makes her enjoy her fights too much.
- Perky Female Minion: Candices's (one sided) relationship with Phantom. Also Chaton and Aqua.
- Psycho Supporter: Peta, Rolan... hell, the entire Chess organization qualifies for this.
- Remember the New Guy?: Bell, Alviss' Fairy Companion, isn't active during the tournament, making very brief appearances in the interludes beteween rounds. The same happens to Ed, the dog. They both get more screen time in the anime though.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Both Dorothy and Snow actually fight and kick ass.
-
Screwed by the Network: Together with The Prince of Tennis, MÄR was aired out of order for several weeks, so that the audience had no idea what was going on. By the time they decided to start over and air the series properly, most of the fans had given up, and it was taken off the air a few months later. It survived for a time on the internet, but that, too, was soon abandoned. DVD's were likewise abandoned as Viz Media gave up on the series entirely. It seems the most we'll ever get from an official source is the 52 episodes currently on Hulu. - Serial Killer: Girom kills without remorse, except for when he knows he cannot defeat his enemy, in which case he Ain't Too Proud to Beg for forgiveness.
- Shock and Awe: Nanashi has lightning powers.
- Shout-Out: in one episode of the anime Ginta is turned into a pink rabbit in what is probably a shout out to Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- One of Phantom's abilities is to trap his enemies into what appears to be the Phantom Zone, from Superman. That and he is called Phantom.
- In the first episode, Ginta is playing a Video Game that closely resembles Final Fantasy VII. Ginta himself looks like protagonist of FFVII.
- Smoking Is Cool: Alan does it, and only looks more like a badass for it.
- Snow Means Love: The anime ends with Ginta and Koyuki/Snow walking home as it starts snowing, even though it's Spring.
- Social Darwinist: Halloween. A few of the other Chess knights qualify, but he is the most evident of them. Phantom doesn't count since he's mind-controlled by the King.
- Sorting Algorithm of Evil: As the tournament progresses, the heroes face the higher ranks of the Chess.
- Soul Jar: Babbo. In fact, it's had as many as three souls inside at once.
- Stalker with a Crush: Chaton stalks Alan in the anime due to her crush. It's a pity he hates cats.
- Dorothy this to Ginta.
- Phantom to Alviss. It creeps the other out.
- Storming the Castle: The final fights take place in Lestava castle.
- Summon Magic: The Guardian Ärms, They're accessories or weapons that turn into giant creatures and kick ass.
- Swiss-Army Appendage: Phantom has his favorite Ärm grafted on to his arm.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Pozun's wife and their female children have bows on their heads.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Subverted. Both Diana and Dorothy are beautiful, popular, and smart. Diana is evil, though, and that's what causes Dorothy to try and stop her. Per law of their floating continent, she even has to even.
- Theme Naming: A great number of characters are named after and have attacks based on fairy tales.
- Dorothy's Ärm are almost all based on the Oz series.
- The Stoic: Alviss. Spoofed on a few occasions in a few gag strips found at the end of each manga volume.
- Title Drop: Of a sort. In the manga, the last chapter is the same as the anime, "Marchen Awakens Romance".
- Together in Death: Chimera...or rather, Irene and Märco
- Tournament Arc: The War Games making up 2/3 of the series.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Ginta and Dorothy. In the anime though, he resolves it with Dorothy by not choosing her.
- Was Once a Man: Chimera, actually a woman.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Alan's fear/allergy to cats.
- Wicked Stepmother: Diana to Snow
- Will They or Won't They?: Alan and Chaton's relationship seems to fall into this especially during the anime. They do at the end.
- The anime spends a considerable amount of time to building up the Love Triangle between Ginta, Snow and Dorothy. In the end, He doesn't explicitly 'choose' either, unless you count choosing to return to Earth the same as choosing to be with Snow/Koyuki. The shows ends with them walking home together, both blushing and Koyuki clinging to his arm, which might imply something... take it as you will.
- When You Snatch the Pebble: After Gaira's Training from Hell that he puts Ginta and Jack through, Alvis asks for a showing of their power now. He takes two stones and fires them towards the two from behind. Ginta, intelligently moves out of the way, impressing Alviss. Jack instead punches the stone, shattering it. He then is seen rolling on the ground because the stone injured his hand. Alvis notes the power increase, but notes that Jack is still an idiot, while Ginta merely freaks out at nearly being lobotomized.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Alan, the most badass of anyone on Team Mär, has a crippling cat phobia. This turns out to be a problem when he has to fight a Cat Girl.
- Yandere: Candice, for Phantom.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Dimension Ärm Training Gate. Time passes sixty times as fast inside the gate. The heroes use the Ärm at just about every opportunity to train for enormous periods of time. Ginta's first training period saw him spend half a year inside the Gate, while only three days passed outside.
- You Have Failed Me: In the fourth battle of the War Games, the Chess Knight Rapunzel kills those Chess members who lose their battles. Unfortunately, the last one killed was sickenly adorable, and her death drove Ginta COMPLETELY BERSERK.
- Your Universe or Mine?: Life is tough for Ginta. The choice is made a moot point in the anime, considering Koyuki and Snow essentially fuse into one being.
